Transfers - discussion on the mechanics and issues .

[dieu]

a new tread should probably be put in the challenges, sign up and experiments forum. I feel that it falls more into that category.

http://community.sigames.com/forumdisplay.php/31-Challenges-Sign-Ups-amp-Experiments

[Some Guy!]

a new tread should probably be put in the challenges, sign up and experiments forum. I feel that it falls more into that category.

http://community.sigames.com/forumdisplay.php/31-Challenges-Sign-Ups-amp-Experiments

It's not really an in game challenge though, more of a test to the forum about the claim that PA is too easy to read.

I don't know. HUNT3R, where would you put it?

[HUNT3R]

It's not really an in game challenge though, more of a test to the forum about the claim that PA is too easy to read.

I don't know. HUNT3R, where would you put it?

It's going generate discussion about how we scout, so I feel we can keep it here.

[YKW]

Scouts would be talking to coaches, the player himself etc, YKW. They can gain knowledge that way that they wouldn't have received from just watching him play.

Yes you are correct here. I still think the question remains over which scouts could actually talk to which coaches and which players. A simple change would be the introduction of a networking stat for staff which would dictate how effectively a scout could connect with the necessary people in order to get that information, as well as, for instance, more accurate (and potentially even exact) asking prices. I'm not sure if any of the mental stats, personality stats or scouting knowledge really affect this. For instance, how much better or worse can an in game scout be in terms of talking to coaches and the player himself, like you mention?

I like the way I did it last time, but I think I'll give it a clean run from the start (more scouts, try and get as much information into the pictures as possible etc.), but the biggest issue is not letting my own thoughts about players get in the way (i.e. ruling any out for any reason). The 4 posted were literally the 4 that my scouts rated the highest at that point in time. What I don't want to do is pick specific players out of a list of many as it may introduce bias, and the last thing we need is players being picked for some kind of agenda.

I see your point but it could be easily be done objectively and without bias. Continue with what you are doing as it going really well, but I have some suggestions for you or anyone else who might do something like this in future. You could sort your list by potential and then simply go through the players one by one and screenshot the ones who meet certain criteria. In my example it would be players with positive comments about their consistency and injury proneness. This would not result in any bias, just provide us with a certain sample. Given that there is a clear trend against these sorts of players, it would leave us with players that we feel more positively about overall.

Alternatively it could be interesting to provide us with players according to their position. For example sort your list by potential and then simply screenshot the first x players who are 'natural' at that position, say CD.

Additionally, we could extend the ages to include up to 18, and this would make things harder I think.

What would also be a very interesting tangent to the experiment would be if you were to also create 15/15, 10/10 and 5/5 scouts, and then compare the reports. I would like to see to what extent the difference in the scout reports would have affected my judgement on the players. Perhaps this could be through key information being missing, such as consistency, or through differing star ratings.

Interestingly even you rated Ouattara highly at second, and when I originally posted them, seeing the asking prices I actually thought: "I'd have a punt on him". Whilst you did note you were suspicious of the price, you did note that you thought he could have "one of the highest PAs".

Yes you are right here. I'm disappointed with my results beyond believing that Sherrer had the highest potential of the lot. He was the only player that I didn't suggest was being overrated by the scouts. In assessing the rest, considering that I thought the scouts were overrating them all, my mistake came in the area that you identified. My musings about Outtara potentially having one of the highest PAs were based on what seemed like an obviously lower CA in tandem with a similar scouted PA to the others, i.e when I said "If he is being overrated from a lower starting point then could there be the possibility that he has one of the highest PAs?" Similarly for Diallo I incorrectly made a gamble to think that the scout could be overrating him significantly based on his precocious CA.

For CA:

Diallo

-

-

Sherrer

Bong

-

Outtaro

And for PA, if pushed, I would go for

Sherrer

-

Outtara

Diallo

-

Bong

I'm supposing you don't have their CA figures at the time, I'd be interested in seeing how I fared there also.

[Cougar2010]

Personally I would like to see us moving away from having potential as the focus of the "experiment", we are trying to discourage users from scouting and buying players by PA/PPA and look at the bigger picture.

Whilst we can list PA out of interest I would be much more interested in how the players career develops and if he is a success or not.

EDIT

This kinda follows on from YKW's earlier post that summarised the results - He picked out that I had rated both Diallo & Scherrer as 4/5. Just to explain I gave Scherrer 4/5 & not 5/5 simply because of his injury proneness, adaptability & lower professionalism all of which have nothing to do with his PA but ultimately play a large part in whether or not he will ever reach it.

[Some Guy!]

Personally I would like to see us moving away from having potential as the focus of the "experiment", we are trying to discourage users from scouting and buying players by PA/PPA and look at the bigger picture.

Whilst we can list PA out of interest I would be much more interested in how the players career develops and if he is a success or not.

EDIT

This kinda follows on from YKW's earlier post that summarised the results - He picked out that I had rated both Diallo & Scherrer as 4/5. Just to explain I gave Scherrer 4/5 & not 5/5 simply because of his injury proneness, adaptability & lower professionalism all of which have nothing to do with his PA but ultimately play a large part in whether or not he will ever reach it.

It's not a matter of encouraging people to look for potential, more testing the claim that "it's so obvious".

In any case, I have 16 new players soon to be posted, on a new thread.

[edj]

A shame about Ouattara. Kid could have been a contender...

To the poster who thinks you need 140 CA to be a backup at a good club: After my long term save with Sheffield Wednesday was over, I opened the editor on a few of my players. My AMC who had scored 25 goals a year for three years running had a PA of 144 and a CA of 127 at age 31. All about how it's distributed.

[Koki]

How do you know all the 5* 16yos?

The only way that happens is by cheating and bringing outside knowledge into the game world, if you play properly its never an issue.

I should have said that I mean regen players aged 16 who my scouts see as 5* (4* gold + 1* black). And there is no cheating. I sent them out on assignments and they come back with a fairly accurate report on the attributes and the potential of a player who has never played a competitive match. You are not really defending this? There should be no way your scout finds players that haven't played a match. The only way to unearth them should be if you explicitly tell your scout to scout them for a longer while. And since they don't play competitive matches, the report should be inaccurate.

[Jack Rudd]

What makes people in this thread think real-world scouts can't judge potential (separately from judging current ability)? I know journalists tend to just go by how good a player currently is for his age, but I'd expect scouts to have a more nuanced skillset for this.

[sirgiorgio]

What makes people in this thread think real-world scouts can't judge potential (separately from judging current ability)? I know journalists tend to just go by how good a player currently is for his age, but I'd expect scouts to have a more nuanced skillset for this.

Scouts certainly have opinions and suggestions ("he's not quick enough to be a fullback, but he's strong enough to be a centre-back", "he should improve his off the ball skills", "he could work on his stamina", "they say he's a slacker and he's always late for training", "if only he could develop his waker foot..."). That's what judging potential means: identifying a player's weaknesses, hoping that he can improve. But nobody knows for certain that he can improve, not even the player himself. Therefore, if a scout watches a match and there are two players with the same CA and the same age and the same "rating", it's weird for a scout to say "I'm positive that Player 1 will be the next Messi, Player 2 won't".

[jumbohotdog]

The maximum that I have paid for any 14-16 year old in fm is around 4 million dollars. You just have to know where and when to look for regens.

[Dr. Hook]

Scouts certainly have opinions and suggestions ("he's not quick enough to be a fullback, but he's strong enough to be a centre-back", "he should improve his off the ball skills", "he could work on his stamina", "they say he's a slacker and he's always late for training", "if only he could develop his waker foot..."). That's what judging potential means: identifying a player's weaknesses, hoping that he can improve. But nobody knows for certain that he can improve, not even the player himself. Therefore, if a scout watches a match and there are two players with the same CA and the same age and the same "rating", it's weird for a scout to say "I'm positive that Player 1 will be the next Messi, Player 2 won't".

That's well and good theoretically, but scouts do recommend based on potential. I know this for an indisputable fact. Granted my knowledge of how scouting works is not from football, but unless soccer scouts operate in a utterly different way than scouts in other every other major sport, they do assess potential. It's mad to suggest that they don't. They do assess those things you've pointed out, but they also project how good they believe a player can become.

They are paid to make value judgments about young talent and whether they believe their club should or should not sign a player. Of course they "hope" that the players will improve, but experienced scouts in particular have a body of knowledge from watching thousands and thousands of players which give them some level of predictive ability.

[sirgiorgio]

That's well and good theoretically, but scouts do recommend based on potential. I know this for an indisputable fact. Granted my knowledge of how scouting works is not from football, but unless soccer scouts operate in a utterly different way than scouts in other every other major sport, they do assess potential. It's mad to suggest that they don't. They do assess those things you've pointed out, but they also project how good they believe a player can become.

They are paid to make value judgments about young talent and whether they believe their club should or should not sign a player. Of course they "hope" that the players will improve, but experienced scouts in particular have a body of knowledge from watching thousands and thousands of players which give them some level of predictive ability.

"Recommend based on potential" means, IMO, that scouts judge a player's current ability and then try to understand if and how the player can improve. They certainly don't use their spider-sense, common sense is enough:

1. Key attributes: a 15-yeard-old, 130 cm tall goalkeeper may not be the next Casillas. A 15-year-old who can cross, takes free kicks and makes 3 assists every match would probably be rated higher than a 15-year-old, 190 cm tall striker who scores for fun only because he's taller than his opponents. I don't see scouts in FM being able to make these simple evaluations.

2. Age: the younger the player, the higher the uncertainly. In the examples provided by Some Guy!, the players were all rated "4 gold stars" (by a scout with JCA/JPA 20/20). Gold stars mean "I'm sure that...". In my view, you can't be sure of anything with players of that age. Unless his current ability is so high that he's (almost) ready for first team football. That would mean CA: 2 stars or more / PA: 4 stars or more. CA half star / PA 4 stars is spider-sense, IMO.

3. Judging current ability is hard per se: the world is full of parents and agents who blame their son's/client's teammates or coaches for their son's/client's own deficiencies. And they may not be always wrong... Since football is a team sport, it's hard to understand in which way the team and the opponents influence a player's performances. For instance, a good trequartista may benefit from having weak teammates: he's the go-to guy, the one who's supposed to make a difference. If he does, he'll be a God; if he doesn't, you'll blame his teammates. But what about a great defender who plays with lousy teammates? It's much harder for him to stand out. This aspect of scouting is hardly represented in FM: at first glance, I would expect a youngster from Barcelona Youth Team to rated higher than a youngster from Deportivo Youth Team, simply because Barcelona are a better team. In-depth scouting will provide more info, but when it's finished, you don't really need the scout to tell you who's better: all attributes are already there for you to judge. This is obviously different from scouting in real life, because you don't "see" passing 9, stamina 8,...

[Dr. Hook]

On point 1, I don't really see your point? FM scouts do make those evaluations. It's the star rating (see below). If a tall player scores for fun only because he's taller than his opponents but is basically crap technically, then I expect an experienced scout to know this and thus we have him rated lower. What exactly do you want the scout to say? He'll know, from having watched hundreds or thousands of players that this tall kid can't dribble, pass, create space for himself etc. So I don't really see the problem.

In example 2, I think you are putting way too much meaning on to the star ratings, as was discussed much earlier in the thread. It does not mean "I'm sure that . . ." What it is is a subjective opinion from the scout, which professional scouts do give, about where a player *could* end up developing. It isn't spidey-sense anymore than real-life scouts have feelings about players from watching them. Your 130cm tall 15-year old keeper may not be the next Casillas, but if he handles the ball well, has strong reflexes, and good positional sense, why wouldn't a scout rate him as having great potential? It absolutely does not mean that the player will develop that way. But look, it is a game, and we *have* to have some way to quantify this stuff because we can't know the players or see them in a way real-life scouts do. That's what the star ratings represent. They could be done differently, as in a text opinion, perhaps, but any way you look at it, we need something of the sort.

On point 3, again, it is a game- how is SI supposed to represent attributes so that we can have some context for them? I would argue that in terms of physical and technical attributes, the current rating system is fine. You watch a player enough, and you "see" 9 passing, because all that number is is a representation of how that player's passing compares to broader footballing world. Take Lampard as an example of a great long shot attribute- where was he in his prime in FM 19 or 20? If a scouts reveals a player with a 14, all he is really telling us is that the long shot ability of the player comes in a bit better than average for the range of skills in the footballing universe. No other way to do it as we can't represent real-life perfectly here.

At any rate, I've spent more time than I really have available on this issue, but if you have suggestions, it would be much more fruitful to the discussion than to just point out what you think is wrong. How about sharing what you think SI should do to correct what you see as wrong? What would FM scouting look like in SirGiorgio's perfect universe and how would SI accomplish this?

[Come on ye pars]

I'm playing as Bayern and want to sign this Ferati kid from Stuttgart who is 17years old and valued at 475k. He has one year left on his contract. I make an offer of a few million for him which would be a reasonable starting point. They come back with a negotiated price of 80 million! And this is not the only youngster like this.

Quite frankly this is ridiculous. I understand that they wouldn't want to sell but when even the player wants to move and they still demand such a huge fee just kind of makes me lose interest in the game a little.

[HUNT3R]

I'm playing as Bayern and want to sign this Ferati kid from Stuttgart who is 17years old and valued at 475k. He has one year left on his contract. I make an offer of a few million for him which would be a reasonable starting point. They come back with a negotiated price of 80 million! And this is not the only youngster like this.

Quite frankly this is ridiculous. I understand that they wouldn't want to sell but when even the player wants to move and they still demand such a huge fee just kind of makes me lose interest in the game a little.

If you read any of the older posts in this thread, you'd know that they're not "demanding" 80m. They don't want to sell.

[deathspawn666]

If you read any of the older posts in this thread, you'd know that they're not "demanding" 80m. They don't want to sell.

the fact that Ferati can leave for free in 1 Year and they refuse to sell him for couple of millions just proves the AI is absurd. Any player would get upset, would not renew their contract, their agent would talk to Bayern and in 6 months the player would sign a contract to Bayern for free...

[Some Guy!]

the fact that Ferati can leave for free in 1 Year and they refuse to sell him for couple of millions just proves the AI is absurd. Any player would get upset, would not renew their contract, their agent would talk to Bayern and in 6 months the player would sign a contract to Bayern for free...

Then do that then. If you think the AI is making a mistake by rejecting the offer, and that you could get him coming off contract, then go right ahead and do it. Clubs have messed up in such situations before.

[sirgiorgio]

On point 1, I don't really see your point? FM scouts do make those evaluations. It's the star rating (see below). If a tall player scores for fun only because he's taller than his opponents but is basically crap technically, then I expect an experienced scout to know this and thus we have him rated lower. What exactly do you want the scout to say? He'll know, from having watched hundreds or thousands of players that this tall kid can't dribble, pass, create space for himself etc. So I don't really see the problem.

In example 2, I think you are putting way too much meaning on to the star ratings, as was discussed much earlier in the thread. It does not mean "I'm sure that . . ." What it is is a subjective opinion from the scout, which professional scouts do give, about where a player *could* end up developing. It isn't spidey-sense anymore than real-life scouts have feelings about players from watching them. Your 130cm tall 15-year old keeper may not be the next Casillas, but if he handles the ball well, has strong reflexes, and good positional sense, why wouldn't a scout rate him as having great potential? It absolutely does not mean that the player will develop that way. But look, it is a game, and we *have* to have some way to quantify this stuff because we can't know the players or see them in a way real-life scouts do. That's what the star ratings represent. They could be done differently, as in a text opinion, perhaps, but any way you look at it, we need something of the sort.

On point 3, again, it is a game- how is SI supposed to represent attributes so that we can have some context for them? I would argue that in terms of physical and technical attributes, the current rating system is fine. You watch a player enough, and you "see" 9 passing, because all that number is is a representation of how that player's passing compares to broader footballing world. Take Lampard as an example of a great long shot attribute- where was he in his prime in FM 19 or 20? If a scouts reveals a player with a 14, all he is really telling us is that the long shot ability of the player comes in a bit better than average for the range of skills in the footballing universe. No other way to do it as we can't represent real-life perfectly here.

At any rate, I've spent more time than I really have available on this issue, but if you have suggestions, it would be much more fruitful to the discussion than to just point out what you think is wrong. How about sharing what you think SI should do to correct what you see as wrong? What would FM scouting look like in SirGiorgio's perfect universe and how would SI accomplish this?

The answers are in this very thread.

1.

Looking over them now [He’s referring to highly rated youngsters]. I don't like the look of the Monaco defender as he can't head, and has quite low concentration and decisions. One of them's a winger with 1 for finishing, inconsistent and poor decision making. The one at Koln is inconsistent and selfish. At that age though I tend to just watch and wait. The one at Hertha looks alright in terms of attribute balance, is a model professional, consistent and is a real flair player, but is unambitious.

So no, I don’t think scouts make those evaluations; at the very least, we can say that a human manager can do better than the best scout in the game, as long as he has information.

2. An “experienced scout” who “watched hundreds or thousands of players” (JCA/JPA 20/20) gives a “subjective judgement” which should be as close as possible to an “objective judgement”. Then again, in this thread we have (kind of) shown that a human manager is better than the best scout.

3. I’m not criticizing attributes, CA or PA, I’m questioning scouting and reports and how they have an influence on other areas of the game. When you see all attributes, you don’t really need “predictions” (in the form of stars, text or whatever).

In my “ideal FM”, Scouting should end when scouts un-mask all attributes (including hidden attributes). The “potential stars” are useless, if not misleading. The fact is, we all know there’s a thing called “Potential ability” and we have the impression that a scout/coach knows there’s a thing called “PA”. Since (if) this is not the case, as soon as the game starts the whole concept of “potential” (the way it is now) should be eradicated.

Reports should tell you how good the player is now (stars, text or whatever), and they should be solely based on weighting and distribution of different attributes (not CA per se).

If you want a report to be more useful, you can include “relativity”, like a comparison between the player and the other players in your team, or in your division, or in the world, or in his age group… Which is, in part, already there.

If you want a report to be really really useful, the “relativity” could be extended to answer questions like: “If he is so good, why is he playing so poorly?” (or vice versa); “He’s strong and good at tackling, do you think he can be retrained as a ball winning midfielder?”; “Do you think he could learn how to dictate tempo?”. In other words, suggestions about possible future developments, which is a bit different from the immaterial concept of “potential ability”.

[BiggusD]

PPA should be a function of CA relative to age + personality. There should not be any information about the PA anywhere within the game itself - that should be exclusively a database thing.

The question is; does the scouting in the game work like that or does it not?

This discussion thread and the "quiz" thread are both trying to answer that question. I tried to apply the above principle when judging the actual PA of the players in the quiz thread, but since all the nine players I evaluated had the same star rating for potential, it was clear that the scout would have to be wrong on many of them - otherwise it would indeed be proof that scouting has access to the PA number. This was clear because some of the players were much more developed than others and the first one (casual, really?) is more likely to regress than develop. I figured that his high PA star rating couldn't be caused by either high CA (he would struggle to play regularly for a non-league team) or a good personality, since Casual is among the worst. The only logical conclusion is that his actual PA is very high, implying that the scout DID have access to it. So a 200 PA youngster with a poor personality is as highly rated as a X PA youngster with a good personality.

It will be interesting to see if I am right or not.

[Guest]

PPA should be a function of CA relative to age + personality. There should not be any information about the PA anywhere within the game itself - that should be exclusively a database thing.

That's exactly how it works in game, with a few more factors included in the mix.

[BiggusD]

That's exactly how it works in game, with a few more factors included in the mix.

That's what I think too, but the Casual guy with no current skill puzzles me. Why is he rated that high?

[Some Guy!]

That's what I think too, but the Casual guy with no current skill puzzles me. Why is he rated that high?

You do get youngsters in real life who are highly rated, the coaches think have bags of "potential", but ultimately are held back by other factors. Medi Abalimba springs to mind.

My understanding of scouting stars though is a mix of various factors, which include reputation, current development and such, as well as their actual PA (which whilst not directly available, does influence the scouts. The exact ratios of how this all mixes doesn't appear to be the same in each case.

I'm actually really interested to see how everyone did guessing the potential. Any reason you didn't try for the next 6?

[Georgik]

I think that the Asian clubs should be more active in the transfer window, also the MLS ones.

You see in real life players like Alan from Salzburg signing for Guanghzou for around 10 million euros, Asamoah Gyan playing for Al Ain after they signed him for around 15 million. This never happens in FM. You see Asian clubs signing players for small ammounts of money, never making a big transfer. There are alot of big money transfers made by these clubs. Ricardo Goulart comes to mind also. Everton Ribeiro signing for Al-Ahli for 15 million euros, etc.

[BiggusD]

You do get youngsters in real life who are highly rated, the coaches think have bags of "potential", but ultimately are held back by other factors. Medi Abalimba springs to mind.

My understanding of scouting stars though is a mix of various factors, which include reputation, current development and such, as well as their actual PA (which whilst not directly available, does influence the scouts. The exact ratios of how this all mixes doesn't appear to be the same in each case.

I'm actually really interested to see how everyone did guessing the potential. Any reason you didn't try for the next 6?

But if they do have access to real PA values, they do not calculate potential the way we do! That's the whole issue!

As for your question, I got tired of it and didn't finish

[Guest]

The AI does not have access to a player's PA value.

[BiggusD]

The AI does not have access to a player's PA value.

what are the factors that make the scouts be completely wrong about the PA then? Presumably, it's that they are either very good at an early age or are very serious about their careers - but a poor player who is a slacker... how can he be seen as God's gift to football?

[sirgiorgio]

You do get youngsters in real life who are highly rated, the coaches think have bags of "potential", but ultimately are held back by other factors. Medi Abalimba springs to mind.

I know nothing about this Abalimba, but if coaches thought he had bags of "potential", it's because they were "tricked" by his ability (=attributes): he was better than other players in his age group (team, division, ...) and thus they thought he could be the next big deal. I don't know any other, logical way for a scout/coach to be "wrong" about a player's potential. It's ok if a 16-year-old with CA 129 / PA 131 is considered the next Messi; it's not ok if a 16-year-old with CA 50 / PA 199 is considered the next Messi.

[Kriss]

That's exactly how it works in game, with a few more factors included in the mix.

It's the "few more factors" that everybody is fishing for

[Guest]

Some things just have to remain a secret.

[Äktsjon Männ]

You want a great example of what's wrong with the system? How about this lad

I just signed him on a trial. This is his career history

He's just literally showed up at my team this very minute (in game time). Yet I know everything about his technical ability and physical capability, as well as every mental trait with absolute certainty. I also somehow know that he is a consistent performer, ambitious, versatile and determined. That's some pretty impressive judgment from my scouts and coaches wouldn't you say?

This PA guessing game, fun as it seems to be, is still missing the point and has actually proven what it was set up to disprove, mainly that with the information we're given the human players can evaluate youngsters with no first team history with absurd accuracy.

[Guest]

We are looking at ways of making it tougher for human managers to seperate the wheat from the chaff while also bringing the AI to a level that is closer to what we can achieve when assessing potential signings.

I am also keeping an eye on the other thread as it's nice to see how people evaluate potential signings.

[Some Guy!]

You want a great example of what's wrong with the system? How about this lad

I just signed him on a trial. This is his career history

He's just literally showed up at my team this very minute (in game time). Yet I know everything about his technical ability and physical capability, as well as every mental trait with absolute certainty. I also somehow know that he is a consistent performer, ambitious, versatile and determined. That's some pretty impressive judgment from my scouts and coaches wouldn't you say?

This PA guessing game, fun as it seems to be, is still missing the point and has actually proven what it was set up to disprove, mainly that with the information we're given the human players can evaluate youngsters with no first team history with absurd accuracy.

It was set up to test if people could accurately guess potential. The previous test showed, if anything, that people were susceptible to getting it well and truly wrong (we all, myself included, overrated young Ouatarra).

Come on though, show you're game, the results are going up at some point today, have a crack at it mate.

We are looking at ways of making it tougher for human managers to seperate the wheat from the chaff while also bringing the AI to a level that is closer to what we can achieve when assessing potential signings.

I am also keeping an eye on the other thread as it's nice to see how people evaluate potential signings.

To be honest I'd probably add different types of player knowledge for scouts, i.e. Judging: Player Ability, Player Potential, Player Personality, Player Traits. I'd then make it a much longer process to find the last 2, with it being harder to gauge when scouting, and even take some time (and be a bit less accurate) with your own coaches. That is, player ability and strengths come at around the same speed they do now, but it would take a lot longer to get a good gauge of personality, and a lot (~of an entire season for an "accurate" reading) of things like consistency, important matches and injury proneness (which they should only be able to tell if they've actually gotten some injuries over the scouting period). With some fuzziness as well (some scouts and coaches overrating a players consistency or important match ability, then revising when they've had a bad or good run or such). More input from watching the players, less from the scouts/coaches ability to "peak under the hood" in that regard in general.

Having extra attributes for scouts in that regard would also add something to putting together a scouting team. People could have their designated "ability scout", then send out their "traits scout" to track their games over months.

I do agree though that to an extent it's a bit much that right now a few months of scouting is enough to see without doubt that a player is consistent, good in important matches and a very ambitious. Not even a month trial should be enough to get a good picture of those, maybe being highly ambitious, but in a short trial it's as though on day one you know everything instantly. Maybe ability would become clear after a few training sessions, that argument could be made, but not "walking through the door the assistant noticed that he was great in important matches".

[edj]

We are looking at ways of making it tougher for human managers to seperate the wheat from the chaff while also bringing the AI to a level that is closer to what we can achieve when assessing potential signings.

Have you considered a scouting scale based on the player's reputation?

Players with a Worldwide rep would have 100% knowledge available to all teams.

Continental players would be fairly easy to get 100% knowledge on, with a scout spending an afternoon YouTubing / reading the player's blog or Twitter feed to determine 'Media Handling'

Players with lower reps (National, Local, Obscure) should be progressively more difficult / expensive / time consuming to scout, with an unknown 15 year old from another country being almost impossible to know anything about unless he trains at an affiliate or is playing for the international side.

[Guest]

Have you considered a scouting scale based on the player's reputation?

Players with a Worldwide rep would have 100% knowledge available to all teams.

Continental players would be fairly easy to get 100% knowledge on, with a scout spending an afternoon YouTubing / reading the player's blog or Twitter feed to determine 'Media Handling'

Players with lower reps (National, Local, Obscure) should be progressively more difficult / expensive / time consuming to scout, with an unknown 15 year old from another country being almost impossible to know anything about unless he trains at an affiliate or is playing for the international side.

We already do this.

[Bittah Dreamer]

I dont know if this is directly a bug, but its getting more and more frustrating as i go on my save.

I play as Man United, and I have established a decent team after a year. Now I have somewhat of 20 million pounds left of my transfer budget, and I want to buy some nice talents I can match carefully into the squad.

But its near impossible to get a decent deal for most of the highest-rated talents around. Not even mediocre talents is possible to get for anything near marketvalue.

Example 1: Maximiliam Arnold from wolfsburg. 21 years, valued at 8-9 million pounds, and I offer 10. Wolfsburg negotiates right to 35 million pounds, without further negotiation possibillities.

Example 2: Julian Brandt from Leverkusen. 19 years, valued at 7-8 million pounds. Start negotiations at that value, but leverkusen bounces it right up to 60 million pounds! Impossible to get for less than 50. For a 19-year-old!

Example 3: Ruben Neves from FC Porto. 18 years, valued at less than 1 million pounds. Offer 5 millions, but Porto bounces it right to release clause of 35 millions! And by no chance, would they go less than it!

I could go on and on with examples, but I think I've proved my point.

Its riddicoulus that it's so damn hard to get these sort of players, they should be available for top 20 million pounds!

The transfer engine in this game is broken, and has been so without any fixes.

Please, please fix it soon! I like to build teams from talents and often end up with average age of 22-23 years within a couple of seasons, and when its so hard it takes away the joy I get from this game!

And I bet there are a lot of people out there like me, thinking the same thing.

If it wont get fixed I'll probably end up quitting these series!

I don't think those examples are unrealistic at all. I'm playong with Leipzig and trying to sign as much German talent as possible. Naturally both Brandt and Max Arnold were near the top of my list.

I managed to get Arnold at the end of the first season as he had barely played in a terrible Wolfsburg team who got relegated. As I was a small club he insisted on a minimum fee release clause which I at least got up to £34million. By the end of his first season with me he had been one of my star players and had Dortmund sniffing after him. Even though my wage budget was tight I gave him a new contract before the season ended to up the clause to £48m (couldn't get rid of it entirely).

Now another season on I may well hand him another contract at the first sign of any interest because i don't want to even lose him for that price (though his second season was kinda mediocre).

So if I don't see 48m as good value for him, why should Wolfsburg accept 10m?

[chucklehead]

I think a lot of the issues people have is with the difference between the value listed on a player's profile and what a club will accept for them.

a couple of examples:

In my current save, I've been looking at an 18 year old regen 'keeper at Anderlecht. The value on his profile is £200k. He doesn't have a release clause, so Anderlecht want £12 mil for him.

Same save, a 17 year old regen at Kobenhaven. Value on profile is £10k. Kobenhaven want £1.1 mil for him.

Although I think the prices asked for kids are silly, it isn't that so much I take issue with. It's the enormous gulf between the listed value and what a club will accept. I totally understand that some clubs don't need to sell and can name a price. No problem. I also accept that a player can be more valuable to a team than his actual worth. Again, no problem. However, if a club want over £1 million for a player, what use is the £10k? It shouldn't show that, as it's clearly not representative of the player's value

[Äktsjon Männ]

I don't think those examples are unrealistic at all. I'm playong with Leipzig and trying to sign as much German talent as possible. Naturally both Brandt and Max Arnold were near the top of my list.

I managed to get Arnold at the end of the first season as he had barely played in a terrible Wolfsburg team who got relegated. As I was a small club he insisted on a minimum fee release clause which I at least got up to £34million. By the end of his first season with me he had been one of my star players and had Dortmund sniffing after him. Even though my wage budget was tight I gave him a new contract before the season ended to up the clause to £48m (couldn't get rid of it entirely).

Now another season on I may well hand him another contract at the first sign of any interest because i don't want to even lose him for that price (though his second season was kinda mediocre).

So if I don't see 48m as good value for him, why should Wolfsburg accept 10m?

Because you're using hindsight. Wolfsburg would not have the luxury of seeing the future.

Although in this instance I agree that a 21 year old promising player should not be for sale for the listed value, but using your experience as an argument is irrelevant. How good the player will become is supposed to be unknown in the FM universe which would make the selling of a 21 year old who isn't even featuring for the first team a somewhat more tempting prospect.

[Guest]

I think a lot of the issues people have is with the difference between the value listed on a player's profile and what a club will accept for them.

a couple of examples:

In my current save, I've been looking at an 18 year old regen 'keeper at Anderlecht. The value on his profile is £200k. He doesn't have a release clause, so Anderlecht want £12 mil for him.

Same save, a 17 year old regen at Kobenhaven. Value on profile is £10k. Kobenhaven want £1.1 mil for him.

Although I think the prices asked for kids are silly, it isn't that so much I take issue with. It's the enormous gulf between the listed value and what a club will accept. I totally understand that some clubs don't need to sell and can name a price. No problem. I also accept that a player can be more valuable to a team than his actual worth. Again, no problem. However, if a club want over £1 million for a player, what use is the £10k? It shouldn't show that, as it's clearly not representative of the player's value

There was a change a few versions back to the listed values as the common complaint at that time was that the user could easily identify youngster with the highest potential based solely on their listed value, the value that is now displayed represents the player's booked value on the club accounts without any adjustment as an appreciable asset.

This means that scouting is more important as it is the main way to get details on the actually sale value of a player.

[Äktsjon Männ]

There was a change a few versions back to the listed values as the common complaint at that time was that the user could easily identify youngster with the highest potential based solely on their listed value, the value that is now displayed represents the player's booked value on the club accounts without any adjustment as an appreciable asset.

That makes perfect sense, but I think you should somehow make it clear through the game interface that this is what it actually does. That would reduce the amount of complaints on here.

Ideally I wouldn't have the value figure at all because it serves no practical purpose.

[Guest]

The logical way to do that would be as a help pop-up, when was the last time you pressed the '?' icon to bring up on-screen tool-tips & descriptions?

[Äktsjon Männ]

The logical way to do that would be as a help pop-up, when was the last time you pressed the '?' icon to bring up on-screen tool-tips & descriptions?

That would be never, but you also have hover functionality in the game which would be more likely to grab people's attention. There's also the opportunity to think of a different wording. Value is not really descriptive of what it is. I mean, value to whom? If the club won't sell the player for the amount listed then clearly it's not his value.

[sporadicsmiles]

I think a lot of the issues people have is with the difference between the value listed on a player's profile and what a club will accept for them.

a couple of examples:

In my current save, I've been looking at an 18 year old regen 'keeper at Anderlecht. The value on his profile is £200k. He doesn't have a release clause, so Anderlecht want £12 mil for him.

Same save, a 17 year old regen at Kobenhaven. Value on profile is £10k. Kobenhaven want £1.1 mil for him.

Although I think the prices asked for kids are silly, it isn't that so much I take issue with. It's the enormous gulf between the listed value and what a club will accept. I totally understand that some clubs don't need to sell and can name a price. No problem. I also accept that a player can be more valuable to a team than his actual worth. Again, no problem. However, if a club want over £1 million for a player, what use is the £10k? It shouldn't show that, as it's clearly not representative of the player's value

The value you see on their profile is down to numerous things; Ig uess the most important are reputation of player and club (maybe league too) and the current terms of their contract. If a player has a low wage contract, its value is low, and for a young player without any reputation this is probably going to be of much greater importance than for a well established player.

What the value does not take into account is how much a club is willing to sell a player for, which is based upon their assessment of how good that player is or could be in the future. If they rate him as the best goalkeeper they have ever seen, why on Earth would they sell him for little? I guess the price they are willing to accept are also based on the financial situation of a club. If they do not need money, they will not sell.

When I am selling players, or putting asking prices on them, I only use the value as a guide to how much I expect other clubs to be expecting to pay for my player. The actual value I will accept is based on many factors; how important is he to the squad, does he want to leave, how much does the replacement I want cost, how long is left on his contract and could I make him sign a new one, do I need the money to reinvest in elsewhere in the squad.

My PSV side had a wonderful season last season, winning the EURO league. This meant I had a lot of bids on my important players. The two I accepted (for players I did not plan to sell) were £20 million for my first choice striker and £17.5 million for my rotation option right winger. I accepted the former bid because my second choice, younger striker had played very well and broke into the first team that season, so I had a replacement. I also had a 5* regen from the season before who I could give game time to, and I had had my eye on a young striker who I could pick up for £8 million. The winger I had signed at the start of the season for £2.5 million, so I jumped at the chance to make £15 million pound profit on him. I did not have an immediate replacement in the squad but I had identified a loan signing I was going to bring in as cover who could play the position (I ended up with two great young loanees in that position). I also badly needed to upgrade my defence, and this gave me the chance to spend some money on the target I had identified, who I signed for £9 million.

Bids on my 4 most important players; left winger, central midfielder, central defender and right back were all negotiated to very high values that I would accept if I had to, but aimed to discourage bids. They did their job, and although some teams sniffed after the CD I kept hold of all 4 players and signed them to new contracts. I would only have accepted £40 million for the CM. Anyway, I explain this in detail because this is how I see the AI as operating in a similar manner, although I imagine somewhat simplified. There are a lot of variables involved in player prices, in why to accept or reject a bid, on who to target, on how much to offer or accept for a player.

[BiggusD]

The value is a good indication of league, club and player reputation. That is pretty much all it is.

If it is the case that small clubs from minor leagues demand reasonable prices for their best players (i.e a few million, not 20-50) while bigger clubs with enough money tells you to go away so that you have to work the player a few months (or even years) to get him, then that is great. My experiences are primarily from FM14, where I felt that 10 years in it became increasingly difficult to find a club that couldn't afford to not sell.

The stories that the ones who complain tells about ridiculous asking prices should not involve clubs from countries like Norway, Hungary or Austria at all. If they do, SI needs to crank up the requirements for any club to deem themselves not needing to sell. The bar should be set high, mostly equivalent to the top-20 rich-list. In addition, the sum necessary to transcend the Godfather Boundary should be scaled down with Reputation.

As for Scouting, I still maintain that if a 17-year-old has not played a single competitive match in his career, he should never be recommended by any scout. Only players who have appeared in a tournament of relevant competitive level should show up on the "known players in your area"-list. The club itself would know that he has a certain potential, and therefore affiliate clubs are useful, especially abroad. Agents, however, should work for their clients and inform the scouts.

The most important change that needs to be made to the Transfer System is that the AI clubs use it the same way we humans do. I believe that a great deal of the frustration people feel with the system is caused by a perceived unfairness. "Why should I pay £30m for their player (6xbase value) when they only bid the base value (+/- a few percent) for mine?" I honestly ask myself the same question almost every time the AI bids for one of my players. With a few exceptions, they are just a personal insult. So I almost never sell anyone that I don't transfer list myself. The first thing I do with any new player in my squad is to set the game to autoreject all bids. This has resulted in 1-2 acceptable bids being rejected in the course of almost 15 seasons of FM14, and compared to the amount of personal insults thrown in my general direction on a weekly basis it was definitely worth it.

The complete lack of a need to consider any offers from the AI is an issue that SI needs to address. When I (we, I presume) go into a negotiation with an AI club looking to sign one of their players, we have a mental note in the back of our minds how much the player is -actually- going to cost us. A £5m first-teamer from a mid-table Premier League club would likely cost between 10 and 30 million. Unless he is transfer listed for £5m he is never going to cost just £5m. We expect to pay X2 - X6 base value, and we'd likely think x3-4 is acceptable although perhaps a bit steep given that the player is a first-teamer also for us or can develop into one. For £30m you can get a lot of very good players, so we'd have to consider it carefully if it ends up there. So we bid £5m just to see where the lands lie, and unsurprisingly the bid is rejected. Fine, we try 7,5, then 10 and the club finally responds with a £45m quote, which is of course way too much. Fine, we continue negotiations; 15, they reply with 40. 18, they reply with 37. 20, they reply with 35. 22, they reply with 34. Ok so this seems to end up close to £30m, which is a bit too steep. So we bid 25 and set it to non-negotiable. After a few days they accept. This is how it works for us in the game, and it is how negotiations really work in the real world. All is good!

Now, to what the AI does. They bid 3,5, which is of course rejected. They then bid 5, which is also rejected (given that I want 25+). They then bid a whooping 7,5m if they are really desperate, and this if of course also rejected. Once in a blue moon, a crazy AI manager will bid an absolutely unprecedented £10m and I'll think "let's play ball - see how far this goes" and reply with £50m (because they quoted 45). They now withdraw and will never be seen or heard from again (if they do return, they will start at 3,5).

There is a lot of time-wasting like this in this game, although I haven't had enough experience with FM15 to say that it has not improved lately. By the looks of this message board it appears to be much the same, though. To fix this, the AI simply needs to stop spamming all the transfer targets on their list in the "hope" of being lucky, and start selecting the one player they want and go for him - being willing to pay what it takes to get him, within reasonable limits. I think that the noise about ridiculous asking prices would go silent if the AI were actually interested in any of our players, instead of just waiting for their contract goes out or for the situation to change so that they could get them for cheap. There is no wonder that the AI is bad at Squad Building when they are incapable of min-maxing.

[Some Guy!]

For the record, in this game the AI seems to love bidding for in form players. Bayern signed my best midfielder for £56 million, Monaco signed my 19 year old striker for £51 million and Man United signed my best winger for £59 million. If the AI sound out a player they want, and they're in form, they'll go for the big bucks. In each instance they came in with a smallish starting offer, and we negotiated until I was happy.

Also, clubs from "smaller" nations do not ask for particularly stupid prices. The big clubs in "smaller" nations might ask a bit, but not stupid levels (£5-6 million is about the highest I've seen in Serbia for example). The rich clubs in Russia seem quite capable of asking for the megabucks though.

[sirgiorgio]

Having read the last few posts about "value", I would like to add another reason why buying youngsters should be easier than it is now: an homegrown player cost 0, so even if they receive 1 pound the selling clubs will make a profit. Some clubs "give youth a chance", while others just use them to keep the books in order.

Co-ownerships in Italy were used for this very reason: a club sells 50% of a player for X million € to a smaller club who can't afford to buy "the entire player". The selling club makes a profit, here and now. In one year, the player can return to his previous club, or stay in his current club, or be sold to a third club: Immobile - Torino+Juventus to Dortmund / Gabbiadini - Sampdoria+Juventus to Napoli...

If it's not a co-ownership deal, it can be a loan fee, or a transfer with a buy-back price, or some other clause...

Case 1: This player is not good enough to play in my team / surplus to requirements, but I know he's good enough to play in another (not necessarily smaller) team. I make some profit now but I won't lose him forever.

Case 2 (it's rare, but it can happen): I know this player is good and I need to sell, but unfortunately I am a small team with no continental football and/or media appeal. I loan the player to a bigger club, get a decent loan fee, and hopefully in one year every director of football in the world will come knocking at my door.

Of course, I'm not talking about 15-16 year old players, but players in their late teens/early twenties who can still improve and are wasted in the youth teams. But the bottom line is, clubs tend to consider only current ability when they set a price for a player. If they think that the player can't stay in the club at the moment, but they feel that the player can improve massively, it's stupid to refuse the money now, but it's wise to find ways to get the most out of him in the future.

[Bittah Dreamer]

The value is a good indication of league, club and player reputation. That is pretty much all it is.

If it is the case that small clubs from minor leagues demand reasonable prices for their best players (i.e a few million, not 20-50) while bigger clubs with enough money tells you to go away so that you have to work the player a few months (or even years) to get him, then that is great. My experiences are primarily from FM14, where I felt that 10 years in it became increasingly difficult to find a club that couldn't afford to not sell.

The stories that the ones who complain tells about ridiculous asking prices should not involve clubs from countries like Norway, Hungary or Austria at all. If they do, SI needs to crank up the requirements for any club to deem themselves not needing to sell. The bar should be set high, mostly equivalent to the top-20 rich-list. In addition, the sum necessary to transcend the Godfather Boundary should be scaled down with Reputation.

As for Scouting, I still maintain that if a 17-year-old has not played a single competitive match in his career, he should never be recommended by any scout. Only players who have appeared in a tournament of relevant competitive level should show up on the "known players in your area"-list. The club itself would know that he has a certain potential, and therefore affiliate clubs are useful, especially abroad. Agents, however, should work for their clients and inform the scouts.

The most important change that needs to be made to the Transfer System is that the AI clubs use it the same way we humans do. I believe that a great deal of the frustration people feel with the system is caused by a perceived unfairness. "Why should I pay £30m for their player (6xbase value) when they only bid the base value (+/- a few percent) for mine?" I honestly ask myself the same question almost every time the AI bids for one of my players. With a few exceptions, they are just a personal insult. So I almost never sell anyone that I don't transfer list myself. The first thing I do with any new player in my squad is to set the game to autoreject all bids. This has resulted in 1-2 acceptable bids being rejected in the course of almost 15 seasons of FM14, and compared to the amount of personal insults thrown in my general direction on a weekly basis it was definitely worth it.

The complete lack of a need to consider any offers from the AI is an issue that SI needs to address. When I (we, I presume) go into a negotiation with an AI club looking to sign one of their players, we have a mental note in the back of our minds how much the player is -actually- going to cost us. A £5m first-teamer from a mid-table Premier League club would likely cost between 10 and 30 million. Unless he is transfer listed for £5m he is never going to cost just £5m. We expect to pay X2 - X6 base value, and we'd likely think x3-4 is acceptable although perhaps a bit steep given that the player is a first-teamer also for us or can develop into one. For £30m you can get a lot of very good players, so we'd have to consider it carefully if it ends up there. So we bid £5m just to see where the lands lie, and unsurprisingly the bid is rejected. Fine, we try 7,5, then 10 and the club finally responds with a £45m quote, which is of course way too much. Fine, we continue negotiations; 15, they reply with 40. 18, they reply with 37. 20, they reply with 35. 22, they reply with 34. Ok so this seems to end up close to £30m, which is a bit too steep. So we bid 25 and set it to non-negotiable. After a few days they accept. This is how it works for us in the game, and it is how negotiations really work in the real world. All is good!

Now, to what the AI does. They bid 3,5, which is of course rejected. They then bid 5, which is also rejected (given that I want 25+). They then bid a whooping 7,5m if they are really desperate, and this if of course also rejected. Once in a blue moon, a crazy AI manager will bid an absolutely unprecedented £10m and I'll think "let's play ball - see how far this goes" and reply with £50m (because they quoted 45). They now withdraw and will never be seen or heard from again (if they do return, they will start at 3,5).

There is a lot of time-wasting like this in this game, although I haven't had enough experience with FM15 to say that it has not improved lately. By the looks of this message board it appears to be much the same, though. To fix this, the AI simply needs to stop spamming all the transfer targets on their list in the "hope" of being lucky, and start selecting the one player they want and go for him - being willing to pay what it takes to get him, within reasonable limits. I think that the noise about ridiculous asking prices would go silent if the AI were actually interested in any of our players, instead of just waiting for their contract goes out or for the situation to change so that they could get them for cheap. There is no wonder that the AI is bad at Squad Building when they are incapable of min-maxing.

I actually think it's too easy to get money from the AI this year. Playing as Leipzing, Junior Malanda was worth circa £7m as a key player for my time. I needed to raise funds and offered him out to clubs at 20 million over 48 months, got various offers at around that level and then managed to negotiate Valencia to pay £44m in a combination of upfront and monthly payments.

I also had Dortmund come in for Max Arnold reasonably near to his asking price, which I negotiated to £45m again but ultimately rejected.

The difficulty appears to be getting clubs to pay all cash up front, but if you try and spread the amounts you can get some crazy money.

[mattskelding]

Could it also be, given the limitations that's clubs are now placed under due to FFP, that setting an extremely unrealistic transfer value on a player (in some cases via the use of a minimum fee released clause) ensures that they are guaranteed to hold onto their best/brightest young stars by the fact that only a few, if any clubs (I'm thinking Real, Barca, Man City, Chelsea, Man Utd and PSG-esc) clubs would be able to afford them?